These past two days I have been in that dreaded institution: meetings to decide on what theory to apply to practice. All in a mining context of course. Midway through another grueling session, the old man (not me) of the group produced a piece of paper with this written on it. It is so true that I must repeat it below, but be warned, it deterred neither the theorist nor the practitioner in the meetings.
In theory, the difference between practice and theory is due to practical considerations that theorists find it impractical to fit into their theories.
In practice, theory uses the practice of theorizing about practical matters, while not noticing that the theoretical method practically distorts the theory beyond application to practice.
Theoretically then, the practical facts are that theory is in practice good for predicting what happens in theory, but impractical as a theory with direct implications for practice, except where theory states that the practice is sufficiently close to the theory to make any difference, for all practical purposes, theoretically zero.
In practice this does not happen very often.
OR TO RESTATE THIS: In theory there is no difference between theory and practice, but in practice there is.
Which statement of insight is much like the weird and wonderful world of Alice In Wonderland, which movie we saw last night. I enjoyed it more than Avatar, for at least in Alice the people are real–or at least so fully of nastiness, conceit, arrogance, and self-delusion as to be real. Unlike those silly blue people in Avatar who live in perfect harmony with themselves, each other, and nature. I wonder how they evolved in the absence of conflict and/or selection. Maybe they were simply created?
